Whereas almost all winged aircraft and most seaplanes have wheels and steering for taxiing on land, it is primarily their wingspan which makes them illegal or impractical for road transport. To be “roadable” the maximum allowed width varies between 2.44 m (8 ft.) and 2.55 m. In exceptions it ranges up to 2.60 m (8.5 ft.). Furthermore, cars are generally heavier, less streamlined and have a less critical centre of gravity than aircraft. Because of these major (and other minor) factors, a practical combined land/air vehicle (“flying car”) for everyday use has remained an unsolved technical problem for over 100 years.
Some of the biggest names in the automobile industry have designed “flying cars”: Ford “Sky Flivver” (1926) and Chrysler “VZ-6CH” (1957) at www.roadabletimes.com, Toyota #JP2005125976, Kawasaki #JP63130413, BMW #DE10215176 & #DE10159082 and Daimler-Benz AG (PARAT-Studie 1990—Personal Advanced Road Air Transportation). The PARAT study was produced in cooperation with Dornier. Other aviation companies to have made attempts were Boeing at www.roadabletimes.com, Messerschmitt MBB (Kyrill von Gersdorf: “Ludwig Bölkow and sein Werk-Ottobrunner Innovationen” Bernhard & Graefe Verlag 1987), McDonnell Douglas U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,649, Lockheed U.S. Pat. No. 2,762,584, North American, Avro VZ-9AV, Northrop, and Antonov (below). Other art has been the result of University projects, MIT #WO2007-114877. Governments are actively pursuing development. The Advanced General Aviation Transports Experiments (AGATE) was formed by the US Congress in 1992. It includes NASA and the FAA. Under its auspices, the Virginia Space Grant Consortium runs a design competition as do CAFE and NASA at www.cafefoundation.org/v2/pav_home.php for a PAV (Personal Aerial Vehicle). Other National Research Institutes are pursuing similar goals; #JP2004122945, #NL 256074 as are various military organisations U.S. Pat. No. 6,457,670. The commercial applications of such a vehicle in recreation, business travel, emergency service, commuting and tourism and the effect of its widespread use on infrastructure, logistics and mass transit over greater distances, especially over water, are self-evident.
Carrying the mass of at least one person into the air requires a certain amount of lift. This can be provided by a combination of engine power and wing area. But even a one-person solution is hard to fit into a vehicle only 2.55 m wide. For this reason, almost half the known art dispenses with conventional wings and merely employs jets, fans or rotors, making it expensive, loud and therefore largely impractical. The construction of roadable aircraft with integrated wings is far more difficult. It's more than just miniaturising or building to a smaller/narrower scale—since a human can't be “scaled down”. It's an art in and of itself, requiring many compromises and combining many fields of knowledge.
Existing roadable aircraft art is divided into three broad categories;                1). “non-fixed-wing” solutions (employing rotors, jets and fans for lift),        2). “modular” solutions (whereby the wings, empennage and propeller comprise a separate unit which is attached to the road vehicle) and        3). “integrated” solutions (whereby wings and airscrew are integrated into and carried with the vehicle at all times). Integrated solutions are in turn divided into seven sub-categories,                    a). bi-/multiplanes,            b). parachute wings,            c). lighter than air,            d). high aspect-ratio wings,            e). telescopic wings,            f). folding wings and            g). swinging wings.                        
Occasionally, two or more of these elements are combined into one solution. The invention disclosed here is an integrated, swing-wing solution.